Known pagewide imaging devices, e.g., printers, include a printhead in the form of a removable cartridge made up of lengthy arrays of ejection nozzles. On occasion, the printhead requires maintenance or replacement. In a particular known design, a user must rotate a release lever to disengage fluidic connections between the printhead cartridge and the ink supply. Once complete, users grip the cartridge tightly and pull it to a side to rotate it free of electrical connections made by numerous spring-loaded contacts. Users then lift the cartridge containing the head by pulling with sufficient force to un-snap it from the printer. Unfortunately, these steps are difficult to perform, particularly since they are not intuitive. They remain difficult to perform even after users become acquainted with the process because such pagewide printers use “clunky” interfaces between mechanical structures.
To re-load the cartridge, users must perform the foregoing process in reverse. First, the cartridge must be lowered into the printer and sufficient force must be applied to snap the cartridge back into its initial position. Second, users must rotate the cartridge onto its datums and back into contact with the numerous electrical contacts. The force that must be applied is rather high and many users, thinking that application of such force might cause breakage of the device, do not apply enough force to put the cartridge into a proper position. After completing these steps, users next return the lever to its closed position which re-engages the fluidic connection to the head.
Overall, the conventional method of removal and replacement of printhead cartridges requires too many steps to be conveniently committed to memory. Since the process is not required regularly during the life of the printer, even users who can commit the process to memory often forget the steps before needing to remove and replace another cartridge. In general, the actions involved in the process remain exceptionally difficult for even the most experienced of users.